


If It Be Your Will

by TheSummoningDark



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies), Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSummoningDark/pseuds/TheSummoningDark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all things they were together, two halves of a whole, and it had seemed absurd to even suggest that they wouldn't go out together. As though either of them would allow the other to leave without him. As though either of them could go on without the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Be Your Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neversaydie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/gifts).



> Walking Saints feels for neversaydie. Turnabout is fair play, after all. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> This is a prelude of sorts for a more plot-driven proper crossover I'm presently working on. So- if you like this one, keep 'em peeled.

They're passing southward through Kentucky when Murphy gets bitten.

It's so very nearly the same as every other stupid little skirmish they've had on the way south. They work together, every bit as seamless in taking down these creatures as they had been in taking down murderers and gangsters in a past life. Except that this time when the last one falls and Connor turns back to his brother, it's to see Murphy staring in blank shock at his raised hand. Blood is coursing down his wrist from where tattooed flesh has been torn open.

"No," Connor says; numb, uncomprehending. Murphy looks up at him with eyes full of fear that's rapidly coalescing into despair.

After the moans of the dead and the muffled thump of silenced gunshots, the sudden quiet that's fallen around them presses oppressively against the ears. Connor closes the two steps between them like a sleepwalker, like a man in a trance. Gently he takes Murphy's hand and turns it over, as though inspecting the wound closely enough will cause it to shift into something else, _anything_ else, like some sort of optical illusion.

It remains, the s of _aequitas_ still visible beside the cruelly unmistakeable bitemark painted in shades of blood and bone on his brother's hand.

"No," he repeats, and this time there's force behind it; grief and rage and horror and despair clamping around his heart like a vice. No. He can't lose Murphy. He _can't_. They've already lost Rocco and Doc and Da and Romeo, and that was hard enough, but- the thought of losing _Murphy_ , of one of them without the other...it defies comprehension. It's _wrong_.

Murphy catches Connor's wrist in his other hand, his good hand, and meets his eyes with something bleak and beseeching in his face. Connor is struck breathless by the realisation of what his brother's gaze is silently begging of him. Before he can even think his body is answering for him, shaking his head in blind denial as he recoils.

"You know what's going to happen," Murphy says, pleading. His fingers slip down to curl around Connor's where they're white-knuckled on his gun.

He does know. They've seen it too many times before. But he looks away, hands shaking. "I can't."

"Please," Murphy says, something desperate in his eyes. "I can't do it myself, you know I can't, and better now than-" His voice cracks and he closes his eyes. "I won't be one of those- things. Please."

He'd always thought that heartbreak was a figure of speech. It's not. He can feel his chest constricting, the brutal reality of this rising up bitter and choking in his throat. The sheer unthinkable enormity of it is looming over him like a tidal wave. It's the hardest thing he's ever done, raising his gun and seting the barrel against his brother's forehead. And though with everything in him he feels like he's falling apart, his hands are steady. Murphy gives him a weak smile.

"It's okay," he says softly. "It's okay." And Connor knows what he's saying, what he's trying to do, but it's _not_. They've never been apart. _Never_. He doesn't know how to _be_ without Murphy. He doesn't know who he is without Murphy. 

He takes a deep breath and begins to speak, Murphy's voice echoing him in perfect unison as they speak these words together for the final time. "And shepards we shall be, for thee my lord, for thee..."

He'd never imagined that he and Murphy wouldn't go together. The thought had never so much as crossed his mind. In all things they were together, two halves of a whole, and it had seemed absurd to even suggest that they wouldn't go out together. As though either of them would allow the other to leave without him. As though either of them could go on without the other. Never in his darkest nightmares would he ever have dreamed that he would be the one to put a bullet in his brother's skull.

"...power hath descended forth from thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out thy command..."

He almost doesn't have it in him to do this. But the only thing he's less capable of is leaving his brother to turn, to become one of those _things_ and walk the earth a mindless monster until he rots, or until he's put down like an animal by some anonymous survivor. This is the only thing he can do for Murphy now. To give him a merciful death, quick and clean. To ensure that the last thing he ever sees is a familiar face and eyes filled with love.

"...so we shall flow a river forth to thee..."

His eyes are brimming, tears coursing unheeded down his cheeks, and his chest is tight with love and loss and pride and despair. He can't _breathe_. And yet still his hand is steady on the gun.

"...and teeming with souls shall it ever be."

Murphy closes his eyes and smiles.

"In nomine patri et fili-"

_Click_

"-et spiritu sancti."


End file.
